The racing weekend that was

In Formula One, at the Hungaroring:

The Hungaroring is a racing circuit near Mogyorod, near Budapest, Hungary where the eleventh round of the F1 championship took place on Sunday. Oddly enough, this race historically draws a lot of foreign fans, with the majority of them from Germany and Austria, but the Finish contingency is large as well. Back in the eighties, Bernie Ecclestone wanted F1 to have a race in the USSR, but a Hungarian friend recommended him Budapest. And so, the first F1 race behind the iron curtain was held in 1986.

Lewis leads the field into turn 1

Up to this season's last race, Lewis Hamilton was having a season to forget. However, this past weekend he seemed to turn a page, for he set a blistering pace in practice and subsequently qualified on pole. On the other hand, Fernando Alonso, season went from great to below par.
The gird was formed as follows: P1. Lewis Hamilton, P2. Romain Grosjean, P3. Sebastian Vettel, P4. Jenson Button, P5. Kimi Raikkonen, P6. Fernando Alonso.

Lewis Hamilton lead from start to finish to complete a perfect Hungarian GP weekend, resisting a late charge from the Lotus' dynamic duo. A pretty uneventful race, except from a aborted start of the race, which saw seven-time wold Champion Schumacher embarrass his team as he turned off his overheating engine as the field was waved round for a second green flag lap. Schumi was left stranded on the grid and would start dead last from the pit lane.

Grosjean battling with Vettel

The pole sitter was quick from the beginning and dominated the race only to relinquish the lead while he pitted for fresh rubber on two occasions. In the closing stages of the race, he came under pressure from Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen who used a longer stint strategy to emerge with fresh rubber. He initially reeled in the Briton but then, as has been the case in the past, he could not pass Hamilton, even though at a point he was less the a second behind in the DRS activation zone.

In the end, Kimi had to settle for second while his teammate Grosjean completed the podium. Sebastian Vettel came in fourth and Fernando Alonso was fifth.

The Championship stands are as follows:
1. Alonso, Ferrari, 164 points,
2. Webber, Red Bull Racing-Renault, 124
3. Vettel, Red Bull Racing-Renault, 122
4. Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes, 117
5. Raikkonen, Lotus-Renault, 116


Lewis was over-joyed after the race, as be seen in the pictures below. He even kissed the camera (last picture).












The season now goes into the summer break with mandatory stop on all activity, including testing. The next race is on September 2, with the Belgian GP at the circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. At last, we will see who's got the balls not to lift at Eau Rouge.



MotoGP at Laguna Seca, for the US GP:
Last week the MotoGP guys crossed the pond for a visit to the Monterey Peninsula, California, home of Laguna Seca. The now renamed Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, is one of those tracks that is a joy to drive, or ride for that matter. The Corckscrew is simply amazing and can be seen in the two pictures below. The first picture shows Jorge Lorenzo leading Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner out of the second corner that makes part of the famed Corcscrew. The second picture is a continuation of the first.

After two difficult races, reigning MotoGP Champion Casey Stoner (Honda) put in a valiant effort to close the gap to title leader Jorge Lorenzo (Factory Yamaha). 

Stoner's gutsy call to go with softer rear tire prevented him to make an early brake and had to settle for third at the start of the race. However, after some time on the softs, Stoner was able to pass teammate Dani Pedrosa and set his sights on front runner Lorenzo. The Aussie's perfectly balanced speed with smoothness got stronger as the race progressed and at 2/3 point of the race he was able overtake the Spaniard. He won with a 3.4 second lead. The photo above/right shows Stoner looking back at Lorenzo just before the finish line.

The podium consisted of, 1. Casey Stoner, 2. Jorge Lorenzo, 3. Dani Pedrosa, with Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow rounding out the top five.

"I was confident for the entire race that I had enough pace for the win, we just needed to make sure the tire would last until the end. When we got to the front we put in some good laps and pulled a small advantage and just continued from there," recalled Stoner. "I'm very, very happy and a big thanks to all the team."

Rossi hitching a ride

Since Volkswagen's Audi division bought Italian motorcycle maker Ducati (now the 12th brand in VW's group), they has been trying to convince Valentino Rossi to re-sign for 2012. However, "the Doctor" as Rossi is called, had another off pace weekend, culminating in a fall two laps from the finish.
"I wasn't fighting for the podium, but a crash like that at the end of the race is still disappointing.... I lost the front when I was approaching the Corkscrew, when the bike was vertical, right when I touched the brake, a bit like what happened at Silverstone," explained Rossi.

The next race is on August 19, at the Red Bull Indianapolis GP.



NASCAR, at the Brickyard 400:

There was a lot of racing activity at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this past weekend. It culminated in the Nascar Sprint Cup series race on Sunday, which was filled with controversy. However, one thing was certain. Jimmie Johnson's (#48) dominance was recognized by everyone, even the runner-ups Kyle Busch, who's not known as a "good" looser.
This was Johnson's 58th win of the series in 383 starts, his fourth Brickyard 400.

"Man, you just hope to race here - to come here and win is a huge honor," Johnson said. "And to win four - four wins! I'm at a loss of words."

With 26 laps to go, Matt Kenseth could do nothing to avoid running into a out-of-control Joey Logano, who suddenly got loose.
Kenseth went to the high side in the short shute between Turns 1 and 2 but he was in vain. Although Carl Edwards' race did not end in a wreck, it didn't end much better. At 4 laps down, he was forced to come in to diagnose an engine problem and try to fix it.
And front runner Elliot Sadler was black flagged for jumping a race restart, ending his bid for a podium finish.

For more details about the race, please click here. For a short video, click here.

The race results:
1. Jimmie Johnson, 2. Kyle Busch, 3. Greg Biffle, 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 5. Jeff Gordon.

The next race will be the Pennsylvania 400, at Pocono Raceway on August 5, 2012.


Thanks for reading.

Source: Formula One Mgt, Crash.net, Jalopnik, Reuters, Wikipedia, NASCAR
Photo credit: Centraleurope.com, Totally cool pix, MotoGP, Crash.net